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Food

Part of a nation's history lies in what people eat. Artifacts at the Museum document the history of food in the United States from farm machinery to diet fads.

More than 1,300 pieces of stoneware and earthenware show how Americans have stored, prepared, and served food for centuries. Ovens, cookie cutters, kettles, aprons, and ice-cream-making machines are part of the collections, along with home canning jars and winemaking equipment. More than 1,000 objects recently came to the Museum when author and cooking show host Julia Child donated her entire kitchen, from appliances to cookbooks.

Advertising and business records of several food companies—such as Hills Brothers Coffee, Pepsi Cola, and Campbell's Soup—represent the commercial side of the subject

Used April 27, 2010, on the Smithsonian Photographic Initiative web site, "click! photography changes everything" (http://click.si.edu) to accompany contributor Jeremy Wolfe's (a professor at Harvard School of Medicine who investigates visual attention) story, which reflects on how photography changes what and how much we remember

Cite as

Goya Foods, Inc., Collection, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

Posed group of men standing behind a table laid with food. One of the men wear traditional African dress. There is a cabinet and two windows with closed drapes behind them. No ink on negative. Ink on envelope: caption and "2 of ea glossy". "KODAK - SAFETY -- FILM" edge imprint. Retouching on faces with New Coccine

Cite as

Scurlock Studio Records, ca. 1905-1994, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

This lap mat is made of white paper with a scalloped edge and printed border featuring the red and yellow IN-N-OUT Burger arrow. The right side of the mat includes a map of the greater Los Angeles area showing the locations of the eighteen IN-N-OUT restaurants that existed in 1976. The upper left displays the IN-N-OUT logo above a text box containing the simple question, “WHAT IS AN IN-N-OUT FRENCH FRY?” The not-so-simple answer provides consumers with information about the potatoes used (fresh, not frozen) and how they are cooked in vegetable oil, addressing growing concerns about healthy cooking oils.

“First, it is a Grade 1 fresh potato – peeled and diced at each location. Potatoes are peeled a few hours before cooking. The oil is pure vegetable oil used for cooking our fries to order.

Towels are used for drying off the oil. Remember when using a fresh potato, it may not look quite as consistent as a frozen fry—but the flavor you taste is the fresh potato, not cooking oil.

With portion controls of frozen foods being sold to restaurants, today, we are one of the only few still selling a fresh potato.”

While fast-food restaurants have been around since the 1920s, drive-thru dining came of age in car-crazy California in the 1950s. IN-N-OUT Burger was an early part of this trend, opening in 1948 at the intersection of Francisquito and Garvey in Baldwin Park, California. In the beginning, founders Harry Snyder and his wife Esther did all of the shopping, preparation, and accounting themselves. They also adopted a two-way speaker system, enabling customers to place their order without leaving their cars.

Eating in the car quickly caught on in the United States and IN-N-OUT’s decision in 1961 to offer customers paper “lap mats” to protect their clothing reflects the popularity of the practice. Harry Snyder began hand cutting the brown paper used by bakeries for packaging buns into rectangular mats. He soon switched to pink butcher paper thinking it would make dashboard dining a more enjoyable experience. When a printing company contacted Snyder in 1971 about replacing the butcher paper with printed lap mats, Snyder saw an opportunity to provide consumers with more information. Early versions of the lap mats featured maps of the local area and information on other IN-N-Out Burger locations. By the 25th anniversary in 1973, IN-N-Out Burger had 13 restaurants in Los Angeles County, all featuring a two-lane drive-thru and a limited amount of outdoor seating. In 1979, IN-N-Out opened its first single lane drive-thru facility with a large open dining room, a design that became the model for future expansion. In 2012, IN-N-OUT Burger had 281 locations in California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, and Utah and remains a popular destination for both locals and tourists who want to eat on the go.

Group of men seated and standing around a dining table. The table is laid with bowls of soup. No ink on negative. Ink on envelope: caption, "1 glossy of ea, 3 dw of big group, 1 dw of small group" and "2 glass [?] transfer [?] Dr. Thomas". "KODAK - SAFETY -- FILM" edge imprint. Retouching on faces with New Coccine

Cite as

Scurlock Studio Records, ca. 1905-1994, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

Page 8 from The Doughnut Magazine, containing reproductions of photographs and drawings depicting the production, sale, and consumption of doughnnuts in England, South Africa, the Arctic, Genoa, and China

Cite as

Sally L. Steinberg Collection of Doughnut Ephemera, Archives Center, National Museum of American History